cantとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From can +‎ -n't, since 1706 or earlier.

発音

• enPR: känt, IPA: /kɑːnt/
  • (Received Pronunciation, Southern England, General South African) IPA: [kɑːnt]
  • (Northern England, Wales) IPA: [kɑːnt], [käːnt]
  • (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA: [kɐːnt]
  • (India) IPA: [kaːɳʈ]
  • (Ireland) IPA: [kaːnt]
  • (some 米国発音 speakers) IPA: [kɑnt]
  • 韻: -ɑːnt
• enPR: kănt, IPA: /kænt/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA: [kænt~kɛənt~keənt], /kæn(ʔ)/
  • (New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore) IPA: /kɛənt/
  • (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA: [käːnt]
  • 異形同音異義語: cant, Kant (in some dialects)
  • 韻: -ænt
• enPR: kānt, (Southern 米国発音) IPA: /keɪnt/, [kʰẽɪ̃nt], [kʰẽɪ̃n(ʔ)]
  • 韻: -eɪnt

動詞

can't

1. Cannot (negative auxiliary); be unable to; not have the ability to (whether due to lacking relevant strength or skill or knowledge or supplies, or due to logical impossibility, etc).

   Antonyms: be able to, can

   Coordinate terms: have to, must

   I can’t quite get it to work.

   Shut up, can’t you?

   The butler can’t be the murderer — he can't have killed her — because he was in London that evening.

   • 1750, W[illiam] Ellis, The Country Housewife's Family Companion: Or Profitable Directions for Whatever Relates to the Management and Good Œconomy of the Domestick Concerns of a Country Life, According to the Present Practice of the Country Gentleman's, the Yeoman's, the Farmer's, &c. Wives, in the Counties of Hertford, Bucks, and Other Parts of England: Shewing how Great Savings may be Made in Housekeeping: [...] With Variety of Curious Matters [...] The Whole Founded on Near Thirty Years Experience, London: Printed for James Hodges, at the Looking-glass, facing St. Magnus Church, London-Bridge; and B. Collins, bookseller, at Salisbury, →OCLC, page 157:

     To make Capons […] [S]ome for this Purpoſe make it their Buſineſs after Harveſt-time to go to Markets for buying up Chickens, and between Michaelmas and All-hollantide caponize the Cocks, when they have got large enough to have Stones [i.e., testes] of ſuch a Bigneſs that they may be pulled out; for if they are too little, it can't be done; […]

   • 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Tuchanka:

     Shepard: Mordin, walk away.
     Mordin: Can't do that, Shepard.
     Shepard: I don't have a choice here. Walk away, or I will fire.

2. To be forbidden to; to be not permitted to.

   Antonyms: be able to, can, have to, must

   You can’t enter the hall without a ticket.

3. (slang, euphemistic) To be unwilling to; to not have the desire of; to don’t want to.

使用する際の注意点

• Although may and can are synonyms, can’t/cannot and may not (including their uncontracted forms) are not, except when used interrogatively. “You can’t/cannot have a console” means you must not have a console, but “you may not have a console” is ambiguous, with “you may not have a console” meaning you are not guaranteed to have a console, with the implication that you still may if you do, while “you may not have a console”, particularly in a formal context, carries a similar forbidding meaning to can't/cannot
• In some US dialects, the final /t/ in can’t is glottalized (/kæn(ʔ)/), so in order to differentiate can’t from can, speakers pronounce can as /kɛn/ even when stressed. When can isn't stressed, this generally isn't an issue as while can can be reduced as /kən/, can't is never reduced, so its /æ/ vowel clears up the ambiguity.

等位語

• couldn't, mayn't, mightn't, oughtn't, shan't, shouldn't, won't, wouldn't

派生語

参考

• Appendix:English modal verbs
• Appendix:English tag questions

参照

アナグラム

• T-Can, NCTA, anct., TNCA